Chapter Text
“Say you didn’t do it.”
Yor blinks against harsh light, seeing stars flash across her vision. Her cheek is still stinging; the impact of a hand hadn’t been softened by the glove at all.
A deep dull ache pulsates at her dislocated shoulder, but the worst are the fine, broken bones of her left hand—if Yor leaves alive, she may never grip a stiletto like she used to again.
She feels detached. It’s not just her body that’s taken a heavy blow, but her mind.
Shopkeeper always told her that it was okay to feel. The deep fissure of loss, the joy of survival—all of it is okay, as long as Yor knows when to cut out her heart to complete her mission.
The blinding fluorescent light fades into a stretch of darkness. There’s a one-way window; even if Yor squints, she can’t make out the people beyond the glass, but she knows they’re there. She feels their bloodlust.
“Just say it,” Yuri begs, his knuckles white where he grips the edge of the table. “Tell me you didn’t do it, Yor. Please.”
Her image reflects on the window behind him, beaten and dull-eyed. Compared to her Yuri looks feral with fear and anger.
Garden has trained her for situations like this. The SSS is one of the country’s most dangerous organizations to get tangled up with. They know, apparently, of Garden’s existence, but there’s no love lost between the two. Garden is still a threat. Any weakness that could be used to cripple Shopkeeper’s precious garden is one the police must exploit.
And right now, Yor is more of a liability than an asset. She will be expected to find a way out of this herself, by force or not.
“You’re not this kind of person.” His face contorts. “I know you’re not. My- my older sister would never do this. She wouldn’t kill someone—she’d never—Director Wilker…”
Yor presses her lips in a thin line, struggling to keep her expression even.
But she is that kind of person. She is Yuri’s sister, the kind of person who looked after him when he was sick and kissed his injuries better. She is a wife and a mother, the kind of person who takes Loid’s jacket when he gets home and sings Anya a lullaby at night.
And she’s the kind of person with blood on her hands. She’s the kind of person who fought to survive, then killed to live, and the first person she ever protected was her brother.
It’s just who Yor is.
“Yuri,” she says.
Pain radiates from her shoulder down her back, but she’s starting to lose feeling somewhere too. She eases in a breath.
“Did someone put you up to this?” he asks. “There must be. Someone threatened you, that’s why you’re here, I bet it was one of those filthy Westalian sp—”
“Yuri.”
She thinks about Loid, then. She can’t help it. She wants to tip her head forward and lean against him, her cheek resting against his chest. She wants to blink awake to feel the steady rise and fall of his breath. Yor discovered a new part of herself with him; he became the person he is, with her.
Yuri throws his hands up. He pulls the cap from his head, the symbol of the secret police disappearing, and runs gloved hands through his hair. He hasn’t bothered tending to the deep cut on his face, dark blood slowly drying in a line.
“Why aren’t you letting me help you?” he shouts.
It must be the same for him, she thinks. This Yuri is a stranger to her, in this dark green-grey uniform, pinned lapels, with a baton tucked in his belt. But still. This stranger, who watched her be dragged here, is her brother.
“You don’t have to help me, Yuri,” she says gently, soothing. “I’ll be okay, no matter what happens. You’re my little brother, you’re not supposed to protect me.”
He doesn’t. Yor glances toward the glass. His colleagues, his superiors, they must be watching. They must see how close Yuri is getting to crossing the line, to helping the person who killed a director.
And then what? They’ll turn against him too.
Holding out is the safest option for both of them.
There’s a tap-tap on the door. Yuri grits his teeth, and she wants to reach out to chide him for clenching his jaw so hard.
“We’re running out of time.”
Yor sits back. The metal chair digs into her shoulder blades. She’s running out of time, too. She has to find a way out of here without killing Yuri. She can do it on a normal day, but in an unfamiliar compound on what is now enemy territory with no way out, injured—Yor doesn’t know. She only knows she has to get out of here.
Loid is waiting for her. Anya is waiting for her.
Don’t you hate me? She’d asked Loid one night, gently helping him take off a layer of fake skin and makeup, watching one face dissolve into another. By the time the mask was off she could see him watching her back, smiling gently.
How could I hate you? He’d asked right back. He looked at her with such tenderness, like he had already accepted the worst parts of her. Now I get to know all of you.
It doesn’t matter if they know she’s Thorn Princess. But if Yor being here puts Loid’s identity in danger—or worse, Anya. If the SSS have any connection to the people who hurt her daughter…
Why did it have to be Yuri?
“There are no direct witnesses,” Yuri says. He snaps his cap back on, eyes hardening. The manila folder between them lays open, his own messy handwriting scrawled on the papers. “All of the people who could have witnessed Director Wilker’s death are… dead, except for you. Nothing’s been proven besides us seeing you.”
You can say whatever you like, and I’ll take it as truth.
He can be gullible like that, sometimes, but sometimes it’s easier to stare a lie in the face and accept it than the truth.
Yor had expected, after she’d had the honor of taking Wilker’s life, for the secret police to storm in. She had planned for it, even. Yor had kissed Anya on the head and asked her to go to her room, to try not to listen even if she couldn’t help it. Then she’d taken Loid’s hand and said, it might be dangerous.
He didn’t try to stop her from going. That’s what Yor is grateful for—he has never, not once, asked her to stop.
He just pressed a kiss to the hand he was holding and said there, smiling, I’ll send the cavalry.
Yor sighs.
Her mistake had been hesitating. Men and women in dark uniforms had burst in, gagging at the scent of blood and sweat, and Yor had taken two out before she’d lifted her stiletto and caught sight of the next face.
Her weapon, gold-turned-red, had already been moving. She’d just barely turned it to the side.
She hadn’t been able to move.
“I won’t say anything.”
“Then… at least tell me this.” Yuri’s voice cracks, like he’s a child again. “...How long?”
Yor hesitates.
“You were so young,” she tells him. “You couldn’t have known.”
The first time Yor killed someone, she’d taken the bus back to the village and then walked the rest of the way home, her socks squishing in her shoes because they were wet with blood. Her hands were trembling. But Yuri’s face lit up when he saw her carrying the paper bag of fresh, warm bread.
She wants to say she’s sorry, but saying it would be another lie.
The knock on the door comes again. Yuri stands up, straightening. He turns his back to her. When did he grow up and get so far away?
“Yor, when I walk out that door and come back again, I’m not going to be your brother anymore.”
Her heart aches, but Yor braces herself. Across the table, separated by a gaping gulf of distance, the Yuri Briar there is not her brother.
She tucks her legs under her and gathers her strength. Her broken fingers are curled around the handcuffs to silence them.
“I know,” Yor says, smiling faintly. Yuri stops, hand on the doorknob. “Your big sister loves you.”
The door slams.
“Yuri,” she murmurs. Her mouth tastes like copper. “Let’s eat spice cakes again.”
On the other side of the city, a little girl and her dog sit together, curled under the blankets, waiting.
On the other side of the building, a young recruit everyone is sure they’ve seen before but don’t remember the name of walks in, searching.
On the other side of the door, Yuri buries his face in his hands.
Yor makes the first move.